Wednesday, August 30, 2017

My Grandmother always wore sensible shoes.
Wide, low heels, usually black, neatly laced
and tied with an even bow. Not rounded toes,
nor too pointed; she didn't like her feetpinched. She walked with a purposeful,
steady, no-nonsense stride.

In her attic I once found an old, worn pair
of slender, soft, rich grey, high-cut
side-buttoned "Parade" shoes
which the box advertised were for
the "Fashionable Young Lady",
sporting "stylish toes, high arches,
and emphasized "Louis" heels with "Spanish"
scrolled in fancy print just above.

Remember taking off my thick cotton socks,
as with them on, my feet were too wide.
Clunked around the wooden floor;
couldn't for the life of me begin to imagine
who these sexy shoes had once belonged.

Monday, August 28, 2017

Late August finds me
reclining porch-side,
for there's no other way
to sit in an Adirondack chair -
savoring chardonnay,
appreciating a symphony
of crickets (bliss high -n- low)
and katydids (rather raspier)
frogs, the occasional dog
paying homage
to the renaissance around the corner.

and then a stillness, a dimming of the sky -
not so much dark as just off color
and my mother calling my name;

remember looking toward the small porch
framed with winding vines of red roses
and choosing to remain quiet. I don't know why.

Vaguely remember a voice saying "I found her",
perhaps my older sister. Look back and think,
perhaps this moment was the beginning of fear.

I don't remember descending the cellar
(that's what Grandmother called her basement)
do remember anxious voices, chilly dampness, the dark.

My whole life I've had this foreboding;
every watch, every warning transports me to that
uneasy disquiet as a toddler, looking skyward, transfixed.

by Margaret Bednar, August 26, 2017

I was not quite two years old when this happened, my mother told me (years later when I shared my memory with her) we had moved in with my Grandmother while our house was being built, our previous house having sold. Where we lived in Northern Illinois tornadoes are rare - but this happened to be one that grounded fairly close - I didn't see it but I did feel the change in atmosphere - something I remember to this day.

As a child I read fairytales, believed enduring wrongs
and injustices would always be rewarded if patient,
if good. I lived on hope; hoped I'd be pretty one day,
hoped I'd have a fine wardrobe, find a handsome husband,
hoped ... oh so many frivolous things.

I never imagined walking over two thousand miles
in a war ravaged country, fleeing genocide,
a baby upon my back.

Never imagined passing by children
abandoned upon forest floor, starving, some already dead
as there was no one to save them.

Never imagined dodging bullets, fearing countless soldiers
and farmers (as food was scavenged from their fields),
not always escaping injury.

Never imagined "walking on bones".

As a child, and shamefully even an adult, my hopes
and prayers sometimes seemed fickle -
as if incorrectly answered I might read a book
instead of recite a nightly devotional.

But Devota never abandoned her Valentine,
her prayers never ceased, happiness not expected,
nor survival - although hope for freedom,
hope in perseverance, hope of a friendly border
did cling stubbornly to her belief in salvation.

Twenty years a U.N. refugee, waiting in Africa
for America to finally extend her hand;
and we are all the richer for Devota
and her wise and solemn "Grimm" fairytale.

Happily ever after, to quote Emerson
"...is to be useful, to be honorable,
to be compassionate, to have it make a difference
that you have lived and lived well".

Immigrants and refugees remind us
what's really important, the giving of ourselves,
each to the other; remembering what compassion means.

A Haibun is one of my favorite poetic styles - although I do struggle with the follow-up Haikus. We just returned from a last summer "hurrah" - a week on our beloved Outerbanks - Ocracoke Island. It is the beginning of hurricane season, and although there were a touch of storms, they came and went. It made the waves a lot of fun - although we didn't venture very far out and my son wore a life jacket and a boogy board attached to his wrists.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

It may be island life; kayaks, bicycles, sun and surf that make life charmingly simple, blinds that never fully close allowing sunrise to pry open my eyes (something I never allow otherwise). Morning coffee slowly sipped, no need for two cups as afternoon naps are expected. Mid-heat of day I venture out, straw-brimmed hat, flip flops, camera in hand, look for contrasts, intricate lead in lines, background. See nothing I haven't already captured. Pause by colorful kayaks, let my gaze follow sandy path and I'm smitten with sparse bitter-bloom, rose-pink sweetness amongst grasping roots of a gnarled, stunted tree. Salty spray and wind perhaps their doom but for now, after morning's rain, they no longer thirst and turn themselves over, as I have, to the warm slant of the sun. May be time for that nap. Windswept bitter-bloom sunbathes amongst gnarled salt sprayed roots - a southerly tempest simmers

Monday, August 14, 2017

Teach's Hole - from the vantage point of Springer's Point - Ocracoke Island, NC

Teach's Hole

Live oaks hunched and bent

for centuries have pointed the way,

loblolly, beach, and maple offer swaths of shade

as perspiration tickles paths down my spine

and the humid breeze lifts a curl,

for even straight hair bends in this tucked away place

where, if one believes or listens closely enough,

a pirate's wail or song may be heard

within the deep folds of a foggy morn.

Easily imagine a bottle of rum in hand;

initial heat searing a path from throat,

to chest, to stomach. Close my eyes,

hear the digging and hiding of the treasure chest -

for we all know it's here, somewhere...

Find myself silhouetted beneath a stunted, stilted canopy,

divest myself of its protection, enter realm of sea and sky,

sink my toes into shifting warm sand,

witness windswept trees, roots exposed,

lounging drunkenly upon dune grass and shore;

they obviously know where the kill-devil's hidden.

Wonder which are native to Teach's Hole

and which were cast ashore upon a hurricane's whim.

Beach glass glints blue-green but I walk by

as I spy a hermit crab at ocean's edge,

play peekaboo for a while; a gambler's luck not mine

as he darts inside at each sneaky turn of my wrist.

Return him to salty spray and settle

beside beach grass and sea oats, wax myrtle and holly,

watch pelicans and seagulls swoop and glide

above (and below) ocean's rolling surface.

Marvel how little some things change; find comfort

knowing swarthy pirates, shipwrecked ponies,

and sundry floral & fauna have anchored themselves

upon this slip of shoreline with their own triumphs

and tragedies - some widely written of,

others left to the ghosts of imagination

and as the sun settles, awash with a glorious template

of which I'd accuse a painter of exaggerated artistic liberty,

I bend my ear, eavesdrop, and embrace evening's breath

as she whispers a few secrets and stories of her own.

by Margaret Bednar, August 14, 2017

* The chiefe fudling they make in the Island (i.e. Barbados) is Rumbullion alias Kill-Devill, and the is made of suggar can distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor. ("A briefe Description of the Island of Barbados" 1651)Ocracoke Island HERE

when I was young. See a young soft sprout and marvel at this offshoot -

proof of the nurturing force of nature, of an old matriarch's

protective shade - thankful my father never chopped her down

for firewood.

----------

I find a fabric that quilts together these memories

and as I search for complimentary pieces and ponder patterns,

I anticipate wrapping myself up in cedar and berries,

love and family.

by Margaret Bednar, August 3, 2017

Painting by my Great Grandmother Helen Augusta (Lyford) Hutchins

Red Cedar trees can live up to 900 years. The fine-grained, soft brittle pinkish to brownish-red heartwood is fragrant, very light and very durable, even in contact with soil. Because of its rot resistance, the woods used for fence posts. The aromatic wood is avoided by moths, so it is in demand as lining for clothes chests and closets, often referred to as cedar closets and cedar chests.

The Eastern Red Cedar that was standing in my side yard when I was two years old and is
still there - a mile from where my Great Grandmother Helen Augusta lived - I like to think this
is an offshoot of the tree she painted above.

Palm a poem as if fragile even if the words are bold. Let them sink into your skin as if moonlight, let them flow through your veins until they become ordinary - for only then will we know they nourished.

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Let Life Happen

"What should I say about your tendency to doubt your struggle or to harmonize your inner and outer life? My wish is ever strong that you find enough patience within you and enough simplicity to have faith. May you gain more and more trust in what is challenging, and confidence in the solitude you bear. Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right in any case." (Rainer Maria Rilke) Furnborg, Jonsered, Sweden, November 4, 1904 Letters to a Young Poet